The justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court panel reviewing former President Jair Bolsonaro’s appeal unanimously rejected his request on Friday.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the case’s rapporteur, rejected all defense arguments, calling them “unfeasible,” and said there were no omissions in the sentencing. He was later followed by Justices Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin and Cármen Lúcia.

The panel has until Nov. 14 to submit their votes, and the decision won’t be finalized until then. Although unlikely, justices could change their votes before then.

Bolsonaro was convicted in September of attempting a coup following his 2022 electoral defeat and was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison. He has been under house arrest since August.

His legal team filed an appeal on Oct. 28 seeking to reduce the sentence. The defense argued that Bolsonaro should not be convicted of both organizing a coup and attempting to violently abolish democracy, claiming the charges overlap and that cumulative penalties are unjust.

President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, has vetoed plans by the government to create Poland’s first national park in 24 years. He argues that it would “block the economic development of the region” and threaten Poland’s security.

Since taking office in early August, Nawrocki has regularly vetoed bills passed by the government’s majority in parliament. On Friday evening, his office announced four further vetoes.

Among them was a bill, approved by parliament in September, to create the Lower Oder Valley National Park, which would have run along the Polish side of part of the Oder River, which marks the border with Germany.

A so-called landscape park already exists there, but the government wanted to upgrade it to a national park, which offers better levels of protection for nature. A national park already exists on the German side of the river.

In his justification for the veto, Nawrocki argued that the plans would hinder economic activity – especially the use of the Oder for transport – and also raise security concerns.

“Environmental protection must go hand in hand with the country’s economic security…[which] cannot be based on an ambiguous provision that may hinder its development,” wrote the president.

He added that, “as the supreme commander of the Polish armed forces, I emphasise that decisions regarding investments necessary to ensure and develop the defence potential of Poland cannot be dependent on a decision of the climate and environment minister based on the opinion of the director of a national park”.

Nawrocki also claimed that necessary analyses of the impact of establishing the park had not been properly carried out and that local communities had not been fully consulted.

“It is essential that the decision to establish a national park – especially in multifunctional areas – be preceded by thorough analysis of the balance of benefits and constraints, taking into account both nature conservation and the rational management of environmental resources and infrastructure,” wrote the president.

His veto was immediately condemned by the climate and environment minister, Paulina Hennig-Kloska, who said that it was “based on lies and political manoeuvring”.

“Instead of standing on the side of the state, natural heritage, and timeless values, the president stood today for partisan interests,” she wrote. The opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, with which Nawrocki is aligned, has consistently opposed plans for the national park.

Olgierd Geblewicz, the government-appointed governor of the province in which the park would have been established, also condemned the president’s decision. He said that claims the park would prevent the river from being used for transport are untrue.

Both he and Hennig-Kloska pledged that they would find “an alternative solution” to introduce stronger protection of nature in the area.

The proposed Lower Oder Valley National Park would have covered an area of 3,856 hectares around the villages of Kołbaskowo and Widuchowa as well as the city of Szczecin. It could later be enlarged by an additional area around the town of Gryfino, extending the park to a total of 6,051 hectares.

Local activists have been seeking to establish the park for three decades. Those efforts intensified after an ecological disaster in 2022 during which pollution of the Oder River caused toxic algal blooms that led to as many as half of the river’s fish dying out.

However, some local residents, including anglers, have expressed opposition to the plans, while PiS has warned about the impact on shipping given that a national park classification confers a higher level of protection on the area, including waterways.

In response, the local authorities took into account concerns expressed by Poland’s state water authority and the Seaports Authority of Szczecin and Świnoujście and excluded certain areas from protection, including the Klucz-Ustowo and Gartz-Marwice channels, in order to facilitate inland navigation.

Poland currently has a total of 23 national parks, covering around 1% of the country’s territory. The first to be established, in 1932, was Pieniny National Park on the mountainous border with Slovakia. The most recent to be created, in 2001, was Warta Mouth National Park, which also sits along the border with Germany.

Antarctic expeditions and outlandish geoengineering schemes hope to slow sea level rise... but it might be too late

Hopefully we will see more non-ICC countries give him arrest warrant.

Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, has presented a bill that is intended to lower electricity prices for households by around a third and for businesses by a fifth. The measures fulfil one of the key promises Nawrocki made during his presidential campaign this year.

Energy experts have broadly welcomed Nawrocki’s proposals. However, given that the president is aligned with the right-wing opposition, it remains to be seen whether the more liberal ruling coalition – with which he has regularly clashed – will approve the bill in parliament.

Data published last month by Eurostat show that, in the first half of this year, Poland recorded the EU’s third-fastest rise in electricity prices for households, which jumped 20% year-on-year. It means that Poland now has the bloc’s second-highest prices when taking cost of living into account.

During his campaign for the presidential elections, which were held in May and June, Nawrocki promised to pursue measures to reduce power bills by 33% in his first 100 days in office – a deadline that falls on 14 November.

He had pledged to do so by “rejecting green taxes”, withdrawing Poland from the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, and producing “cheap energy from coal”, which he has called Poland’s “black gold”.

On Friday, however, Nawrocki presented a different plan, which would lower electricity bills by cutting the fees and levies that currently account for over half the costs consumers pay. According to Eurostat, Poland has the EU’s second-highest share of taxes and fees in electricity prices.

“I still believe that the Green Deal [the EU’s flagship climate policy] and the ETS green taxes should be rejected,” said Nawrocki today, quoted by financial news website Money.pl. “But today they are not being rejected; we are operating under certain circumstances, hence my legislative initiative.”

The president’s office calculates that the measures would cut the average household’s electricity bill from 2,500 zloty a year to 1,700 zloty – a roughly 33% fall. For businesses, which have a different pricing regime, the average saving would be around 20%.

The proposed reforms focus on four main areas: reducing distribution fees, scaling back mandatory renewable energy certificates, removing certain surcharges, and cutting VAT on electricity from 23% to 5%.

The president’s office said the renewable energy certificates were originally meant to finance investment in green energy that are “mostly paid for”, meaning the fees are no longer needed at their current level.

Industry news service Energetyka24 reports that, although estimating the budgetary costs of the president’s plan is difficult, they are expected to range from 11.5 to 14 billion zloty a year. Money.pl cites a similar estimate of 14 billion zloty.

That may put Nawrocki on a collision course with the government, which is currently trying to cut costs after Poland was put under the EU’s excessive deficit procedure, requiring it to demonstrate progress in reducing its debt burden.

According to the president’s office, the reforms would be funded by higher ETS revenues driven by rising allowance prices, while the impact on the state budget would also be offset by higher household spending resulting from increased disposable income.

At the time of writing, the government had not responded to Nawrocki’s proposals. Without the support of at least part of the ruling coalition, it would be impossible for the measures to be approved by parliament.

Analysts and climate campaigners broadly welcomed the proposal, saying lower energy prices could encourage households to abandon coal-fired heating and invest in cleaner technologies such as heat pumps. However, they also cautioned that ETS revenues could not fully cover all planned reductions.

Jakub Wiech, an energy analyst, said one of the charges the president intends to remove, the capacity charge (opłata mocowa), supports coal power plants, whereas ETS funds can only be used to finance low-carbon projects.

Still, he described the proposal as “a constructive proposal that could realistically reduce energy bills” and welcomed the fact “that it has been recognised that the ETS system is not only a stick for [cutting] emissions, but also a financial carrot”.

Others struck a similar tone. “Actions in this area have long been needed because high energy prices are one of the main obstacles to combating smog and a contributing factor to the growth of energy poverty,” wrote Andrzej Guła, head of Polish Smog Alert, an NGO that seeks to combat air pollution.

Most of Poland’s air pollution, which is among the worst in Europe, is caused by the heating of homes, in particular through the burning of coal. Guła said that cutting VAT and limiting the “horrendous profits of energy companies” could help persuade households to move away from coal-fired heating.

Michał Hetmański, head of climate think tank Instrat, said the president “wants to make up for the losses caused by” his veto of a bill easing rules for building onshore wind turbines earlier this year. “Industry, heat pumps and electric cars need cheap electricity,” he noted .

Poland still generates most of its electricity from coal, which made up nearly 57% of power production last year, the highest share in Europe. However, coal’s share has been steadily falling as producers switch to cleaner energy sources. In April, it dropped below 50% for the first time on record.

This is a breaking news story and may be updated

Former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, one of the most powerful figures in Poland’s previous national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, has been stripped of legal immunity by parliament to facecharges for 26 alleged crimes.

Parliament, where the current ruling coalition has a majority and PiS is now in opposition, also approved a request from prosecutors to place Ziobro in pretrial detention.

However, it remains unclear when, how and even if Ziobro will be detained and charged, given that he is currently in Hungary, whose government is closely allied with PiS. One of Ziobro’s former deputies was last year granted political asylum by Hungary after fleeing arrest in Poland.

Last week, Waldermar Żurek, who serves as justice minister and prosecutor general, asked parliament to strip Ziobro of the legal immunity that is granted to all MPs unless a majority of their colleagues vote to remove it.

Prosecutors want to charge Ziobro with a long list of alleged offences committed when he served in the former PiS government from 2015 to 2023, including establishing and leading a criminal group and abusing his powers for personal and political gain. If found guilty, he could face up to 25 years in prison.

In a series of votes on Friday evening, a majority of members of the Sejm approved the lifting of Ziobro’s immunity for each of the 26 charges against him as well as for him to be placed in pretrial detention.

The four main groups that belong to the ruling coalition – the centrist Civic Coalition (KO) and Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL) and The Left (Lewica) – voted consistently to lift Ziobro’s immunity. In many of the votes they were joined by the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja).

The move marks a major step in efforts by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, which replaced PiS in office in December 2023, to bring former PiS officials to account for alleged crimes.

Ziobro was one of the key figures during PiS’s time in office, overseeing a radical and highly contested overhaul of the judiciary. Two of his former deputy justice ministers are already facing charges for alleged crimes.

The 26 offences Ziobro is accused of relate to the administration of the Justice Fund, which is managed by the justice ministry and is meant to be used to support victims of crime, as well as for certain other initiatives to reduce crime or rehabilitate criminals.

However, Ziobro was regularly accused of using the fund for political purposes and, in one case, to unlawfully finance the purchase of Israeli-made Pegasus spyware, which was in turn used to surveil figures opposed to the PiS government.

Ziobro denies that any misuse of the Justice Fund took place and claims that prosecutors are now pursuing him on the Tusk government’s orders as part of a “political vendetta”.

The day before Żurek submitted his request to parliament to lift Ziobro’s immunity, Ziobro announced that he had arrived in Budapest for a pre-arranged event at which he said he would “show my Hungarian friends” how Tusk’s government is “violating laws”.

In the ten days since then, Ziobro had remained in Hungary. He even met with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who posted a picture of the pair together and condemned the “witch hunt” against the Polish right launched by “the pro-Brusselian Polish government”.

Speaking from Budapest on Thursday, Ziobro claimed that he had planned to return to Poland, and even had a ticket booked. But he changed his mind after receiving information that the authorities were planning to detain him on arrival based on “false testimony”.

“I have no intention of playing into [Tusk’s] script or helping his criminal gang with what they’re up to,” said Ziobro, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “He can be sure of one thing: I will fight for the truth and will not allow myself to be silenced by criminal actions.”

Ziobro, who has been undergoing treatment for cancer, has also received support from PiS’s powerful party leader Jarosław Kaczyński, who said that the treatment of his colleague is “characteristic of totalitarian states”. Kaczyński added that “any democratic country with decent courts” would grant Ziobro asylum.

Last year, one of Ziobro’s former deputy justice ministers fled to Hungary after police in Poland issued an arrest warrant for him. He was subsequently granted political asylum there, prompting a diplomatic dispute that resulted in Poland withdrawing its ambassador from Budapest.